Peking University, China’s top academic institution, admitted this month that 20 years ago a professor had been involved in “inappropriate student-teacher relations” with a female student. Former classmates of that student, Gao Yan, a star pupil studying Chinese literature, say she was raped and that the assault pushed her to kill herself less than a year later.

The university said in a statement on 6 April that at the time they concluded the professor, Shen Yang, had “handled the situation very imprudently” and he was given an administrative warning and demerit in the summer of 1998, about four months after Gao’s suicide. Shen has denied the allegations by Gao’s classmates, calling them “total nonsense”.

For one student, that wasn’t enough. Deng Yuhao, an undergraduate at Peking University studying maths, posted a statement on WeChat on 7 April calling for students and teachers to pressure the university to release more details of their investigation. His article was viewed or shared more than a million times.

That night a professor called Deng to meet, according to accounts circulated by students on WeChat. More than 10 students accompanied him, waiting outside while he spoke with the professor who told Deng he was being disrespectful of the dead and his actions could cause the situation to get out of hand.

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The next day, Deng’s online statement and all reports mentioning him were scrubbed from the internet. But the story had already spread, inspiring other students and activists.

“There are many different roles in this movement... The most important is the students. They have a strong motivation to do something,” said Li Maizi, a Chinese activist working on gender equality, who was one of five women detained in 2015 for campaigning against sexual harassment. “They are very united. The young people are powerful at this moment,” she said.

From the outside, China’s “MeToo” movement is a fledgling one. In January, when a former PhD student at Beijing’s Beihang University accused her ex-adviser of attempting to rape her 12 years ago, the phrases woyeshi, MeToo and “anti-sexual harassment” trended online briefly before they were censored. “Rice bunny”, a homonym for MeToo has also been censored.

A WeChat account called ATSH, which stands for anti-sexual harassment, that people like the Beihang university student had used to write about their experiences, has been blocked. A popular blog, Feminist Voices, has also been censored on Weibo. Petitions from students and teachers calling on universities to establish systems to counter sexual assault have so far gone unanswered.

According to a 2017 survey of about 6,500 respondents, mostly women between the ages of 18 and 22, done by the Guangzhou Gender and Sexuality Education centre, almost 70% of respondents had experienced sexual harassment, with 40% of those cases occurring in public on campus.

“Sexual harassment in China is so common. People don’t really take it seriously. They don’t really deal with this issues,” said Wei Tingting, who runs the gender education centre in Guangzhou. At universities that is compounded by a massive power imbalance between teachers and students.

Still, Chinese students and activists are pushing for sexual harassment to be taken seriously.

Students at Nanjing University have started a Weibo account, “Me too blue whale,” a nickname students use for themselves. Other students have opened similar accounts. At Renmin University in Beijing, students are reportedly doing their own research on sexual harassment on campus.

Zheng Xi, a student in Zhejiang province has been writing to transport authorities to put up signs on the subway that say “No Harassment,” with a picture of a man attempting to grope a female passenger.

She said she has received positive replies from officials in Kunming, Shanghai, and the government-sanctioned women’s federation in Shenzhen. Zhu also hands out brochures about gender discrimination at job fairs.

“I can see progress in people’s understanding about countering sexual harassment, and I see more people caring about it and making an effort,” she said. “The consensus on counter sexual harassment is gradually forming.”

People are still mobilising online. Wei published an open letter to her alma mater, Wuhan University, asking it to establish a policy on sexual harassment. Through discussion groups on WeChat she and her colleagues are encouraging more people to do the same at other universities in the city.

“What impresses me most is the students’ enduring efforts to get their messages out. They don’t give up after their articles are deleted,” said a volunteer with the Feminist Voices blog who asked not to be named.

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Male students and members of the LGBT community are also involved. “The movement is becoming more and more decentralised,” the Feminine Voices volunteer said.

Still, students are coming under pressure. Like Deng, they are being called in for meetings or “tea” with school administrators. Tutors have asked their students to delete their online posts and discuss their concerns privately. In some cases parents are called.

“These universities are afraid these initiatives will have a bad effect on their name,” said Zhang Leilei who has been working with students and teachers to pressure universities to establish policies to prevent sexual harassment. “Almost all of our initiatives have been deleted [from the internet] once or twice,” she said.

Still, their efforts are making some difference. The day after Deng’s early morning meeting, Peking University said it would adopt a “zero tolerance” policy toward sexual harassment and establish channels for reporting cases. Shanghai Normal University and Nanjing University, Shen’s current employer, both terminated their contracts with him.

More students have been emboldened. After Shen’s firing, another former student of his told Chinese media that he had groped her. That report was quickly censored.

Las week, a student at Renmin University posted on the question and answer site, Zhihu, that one of the school’s professor had sexually harassed her. The post was deleted, but not before it was copied and posted on Wechat. Now censored photos showed students standing outside the professor’s classroom in protest.

After a standoff between students and administrators, the university has promised to investigate.

Additional reporting by Wang Xueying

In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.